


This will go on forever

by Deriliarch



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Child discussing death, Connor is...confused by kids, Dead Animal Mention, Established Relationship, Existentialism, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Gen, I posted this and immediately found 5 errors, It's a fish. It's not graphic--it's just a random fish on the beach, M/M, Markus (Detroit: Become Human) Deserves Happiness, Markus is good with kids, Mention of possible future child death (non-graphic), Nothing serious she's just asking kid questions, POV Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Post-Pacifist Best Ending (Detroit: Become Human), Post-Peaceful Android Revolution (Detroit: Become Human), Post-The More You Know (my own long fic) but there are no references to plot points, Soft Connor (Detroit: Become Human), This can be stand alone, Unbeta'd as per usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:21:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22426984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deriliarch/pseuds/Deriliarch
Summary: "Connor didn't think of himself as warm. Not necessarily cold or bad, but not...comforting."---Android children get tired of being cooped up all the time, just like human children. While February might not be the ideal time to go on a lake trip, it gives Connor some time to get more comfortable with the children of New Jericho. Markus, of course, needs no such adjustment period.Sleeves are rolled up, shoes are taken off, and dead lake life becomes the topic of existential conversation.
Relationships: Connor & Original Character, Connor/Markus (Detroit: Become Human)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 124





	This will go on forever

**Author's Note:**

> It was foggy the other day. So obviously that means I need to write about existentialism.  
> This literally just popped into my head while thinking about how I would describe the scenery.  
> \--  
> The child android featured in this story is from my longer RK1K work, [ The More You Know](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18026165/chapters/42592694). You don't need to have any background on her to understand this story, just know that she's known to be aggressively affectionate and precociously confident, and a bunch of fun to have hassle the grown-ups.

It was a grey February day, with thick fog clinging to the edges of things and leaving behind its sheet of pebbled moisture to chill. It was 34℉, everything still and stuck between the process of melting and freezing, leaving ice and snow heavy and wet. Not necessarily an ideal day for a trip to a rocky shore of Lake Huron, but the children had been promised and Markus had wanted a day trip away from it all. The deeper the small bus full of raucous little androids had passed into this white cloak, following only the dark strip of road ahead of it, the more that Connor had seen Markus relax into it. 

It was the eyes, then. The watching. Being seen constantly by those he did not love and who did not love him. Connor could understand. No one could see them in this fog.

When they had all piled out into the parking lot, the adult models had done their best to wrangle them, though all that meant was setting up boundaries, pointing them at the water, and getting out of their way. The dense air was filled with shrieks of joy and surprise as they charged first in, then out of the frigid water, laughing like they hadn’t expected a lake on a winter day to be cold, and it was an enormous joke. The stones of the shore were small and dark with water and the mist thickened further, greying the trees up the shoreline into ghostly sentinels. It hid the world beyond a few yards on either side in a mystery and blankness usually reserved for dark. Instead, it was light; pure white. 

Connor had watched with a smile as they scattered from oncoming waves, then splashed in with repeated exclamations of how cold it was. Yes, one of their caretakers, Mary, would explain, water is much slower to heat than air. The science behind it didn’t interest them, only the shock of cold against their sensors that they would come back to again and again, squealing and giggling. 

Markus was there, knee deep with his pants rolled up, a child on each arm, swinging them above the waves as they screamed in delighted horror at the thought that he might drop them in. He was laughing.

Connor was going to join him when he caught sight of the small, muted form walking alone along the shoreline--not out of bounds yet, but wandering close. A quick scan confirmed that he was the closest adult model and as he approached, he recognized the curly black head of Nadia as it dipped close to the waves hissing through the pebbles. She picked up a handful of dripping seaweed and flung it as far as she could back into the lake and watched the ripples be swallowed by the smooth swells. Looking up at his footsteps, she flung her arms expansively wide to take in the lake and the fog, and proclaimed, as if to an audience, “If you told me this went on forever, I'd believe you."

He looked out to what they could see of the lake fading away from them into the whiteness, the quiet sound of them lapping swallowed by the air's dense particles, focusing them only on what they could perceive in the few yards around them. “I wouldn’t tell you that,” he said with a smile. 

"Why?"

"It would be a lie."

She made a thoughtful face, a little too exaggerated to be anything other than an expression she had lifted from someone, and tapped her chin. "It might be nice to believe a lie that feels so good."

Connor puzzled over this a moment. Wishful thinking. The sound of Markus’ laugh drew his gaze down to where he was being shoved by no less than 4 children, all trying to topple him over into the frigid water. For a moment, he braced against them, the deftly turned and let their momentum carry them splashing in instead with screams of delighted outrage. Markus had always been good at wishful thinking. "I suppose I can understand that. Can I walk with you?"

“Sure.” Then, she looked up at him seriously. “I’m not running away.”

“I know you’re not. I thought it would just be nice to walk.”

“Okay, I don’t wanna get in trouble.”

Lightly, he reached out and patted her head, feeling the spring of her curls push back. It was something he had seen Mary and the Jerry’s do when they were with children; pat their heads in encouragement. She didn’t seem to think it was strange or objectionable, so it was probably the right choice. 

Their footsteps crunched in the rocks and, a few times, he had to brace against her wheeling her arms and leaning against his leg when they would shift unexpectedly from under her, but at least she seemed comfortable doing so. 

Close enough to the edge of the boundary they had been given that he was about to open his mouth to suggest turning back, the mist revealed the carcass of some large lake fish washed up in a tangle of sticks and seaweed. It was cold and fresh enough that there was no smell, only the wet-greenness the lake had from the organic compounds of decaying and flourishing algae.

**{Scan initiated...**

**>**

**> Lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush)**

**> 30 in.**

**> DECEASED: cause unknown}**

Nadia saw it a moment after him and gasped, running up to it, only to hover uncertainly, dark hands outstretched but not touching. “A fish!”

“A Lake trout.”

“Is it okay?”

Oh. He drew up next to her and looked down at it; the only movement was when a particularly boisterous wave tugged its tail in its eddy before retreating. “Well...no. It’s dead.”

“...Oh.” She stared down at its cold, gelatinous eye, pointed to the blank white sky. “Why?”

“I don’t know; maybe it got sick. I wasn't programmed with much information about fish. But I could check,” he offered as an afterthought as she continued to simply look at it’s body, sleek and speckled-pale.. 

“No,” she said quietly. 

Connor frowned and watched her. Maybe telling her it was dead was the wrong thing? Markus would have known. 

After another few seconds of quiet, she looked up at him and asked. "Am I gonna die?"

His processor clicked a few times, ratcheting in different directions, trying to follow the jump in thought process from fish to mortality. “In what way?"

"Ever?"

He had never been programmed to deal with children, and deviant android children only to the degree that he could catch them, know their quirks like fear and a proclivity for animals. But never how to...comfort them. He liked them well enough. But he was always worried about scaring them and seemed to either confuse or amuse them unintentionally with his responses to their nonsensical conversations. 

Markus was always the people person, and Connor felt much of the affection associated with himself was simply misplaced because he was in proximity to Markus when he was doing his _thing_. And that was alright. He preferred to watch and absorb anyway, in the orbit of Markus’ gravity well of sun, an affectionate satellite absorbing the warmth and gentleness that Markus generated and attracted. Connor didn't think of himself as warm. Not necessarily cold or bad, but not...comforting. Perhaps he should call Markus. Or one of the other adults. 

Or maybe…maybe she was talking to him _because_ she wanted a straightforward answer instead. Was her psyche programmed to have that much nuance? This didn't seem to be the horror of first realization--it seemed to be something she had thought about before.

Slowly, he answered, “I think that depends on what you mean. Everything ends eventually.”

She screwed her face into an dissatisfied moue, and looked back up at him with big, dark eyes. “I'm 5. ‘Cause, when I wonder, that's what my brain tells me, is I'm 5. But I think I was 5 when my first Mommy got me from the store…and that was, like, so many…so many times ago?”

“So long ago?”

“Yeah. And I know how to count to 100 so I know numbers go up--and my Mommy had a pet dog who died ‘cause he was too old. And so I thought _I_ was gonna die when I was too old, because Mommy said he lasted so long because she took real good care of him and she took real good care of me when she had me but...I had a friend down the street and he was 5 and a half and then he was 6 and then he was 7 and he was going to school and he was so tall. But I’m still 5 so….I think maybe I’m different.”

Connor nodded, watching her closely, trying to discern what she needed. What was being expected of him. 

It had never occurred to him that, while grappling with the idea and fear of his own mortality was something that was viscerally unpleasant, the child androids would eventually be facing the same dilemma with the mindset they had been programmed with. A forever child, looking down the barrel of eternity. Maybe he _should_ call for Markus. He didn’t want to scare her further.

“Yes, we're different from your human friends. We don’t grow older physically like they do. You will be how you are now for...for a long, long time. We don’t have the technology right now to make your consciousness develop like theirs. Does that...make you sad?” Was that what she was feeling? Or was it fear? 

She gave a shrug and nudged a rock with the toe of her sparkly, light up shoe until it rolled onto the tail of the fish, trapping it’s fluttering fins in the water. “I dunno. Did maybe the fish die because it was too old?”

“Maybe it did. That probably happens to some fish.”

“‘Cause someone took real good care of it?”

For a moment, an image of the Dwarf gourami from the Phillips’ household presented itself in his vision, lying helpless on the floor, cool and slick in his hand. Deposited back safely in its shattered home.

“I...don’t think fish that live in lakes work like that.” 

“But what about King Triton? Maybe he took real good care of the fish? ‘Cause he’s king of the ocean.”

**{Query: King Triton**

**>**

**>**

**> Query returned: CHARACTER in 1989 classic Disney movie THE LITTLE MERMAID}**

He took a moment to decide, watching her watching the fish, considering the flow of her conversation, the hopeful, helpful tone of her voice. _If you told me this went on forever…_ “Maybe he did. Who’s to say?” he hazarded and she seemed satisfied that someone had accepted her theory.

“Can I touch it?”

“Uh…” he said, dubiously, then knelt down and ran a finger over its cold flank, then pressed the fingertip to his tongue. The sensors busily analyzed, breaking the mucus, the algae, the bacteria down to their essentials, dutifully sorting and categorizing. Nothing caustic, pollution levels acceptable, nothing that would damage any components it would get in. “If you want.”

When he looked back up, she was looking at him with her entire face wrinkled up around her nose, eyes squinted. “That was super gross.”

“I was checking to make sure it was safe, I have specialized sensors--”

“You licked a dead fish. I’m telling Markus you licked a dead fish and he’s not gonna want to kiss you anymore.”

He blinked. “I was just testing if it was alright for you to touch it!”

“I don’t wanna _lick_ it! That’s gross!”

“I never _said_ that you wanted to--do you _want_ to touch it?”

“ _No,_ it’s got your _germy spit_ on it!” A grin was tucked into the disgust that still creased her face. 

“I did _not_ lick it, Nadia--”

She spun on her heel, cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted back up the shoreline at the distant, fog-dimmed figures, “CONNOR LICKED A DEAD FIIIIIISH!” 

Connor stood, affronted, and opened his mouth before her maniacal laughter gave him pause enough to realize that she was teasing. Familiar, friendly. He relaxed and tilted her a half smile, half grimace, venturing, "Maybe…I'll tell him you went out of bounds if you tell him I licked a fish."

She whirled and gasped, clapping her hands to her cheeks. "You _wouldn't!_ That would be lying!"

Very slowly, he raised his eyebrows, hands, and shoulders in an exaggerated shrug and adopted the sing-song tone he had heard a Jerry use to clearly show he was joking. "I don't know. Maybe I would."

" _You,_ " she said in a tone of utter betrayal that made him worry he hadn't been obvious enough--until she leaned in and whispered. "Fish licker." 

Cackling, she dashed back up the beach the way they had come, sliding around on the loose pebbles. Smiling, he followed her back at a more stately pace and returned in time to see her _shoveling_ water at Markus with enough vigor that he shielded his eyes and backed out with a chuckle. He turned and caught Connor around the waist with his arm, pulling him to his side, revolving them both slowly for a moment like a pair of ballroom dancers. He was chilly and damp and beaming. "Hello. Come here often?"

Connor replied with a dry smile. "Actually, it's my first time. You?" Markus looked...lighter than he had in weeks. Playful and chipper as he hadn’t been for a while, slogging through technicalities in a world that wanted them crushed under the heel of humanity. It made Connor want to hold him.

Markus slowed, then stopped them and nuzzled into his neck, wafting the chill, greening smell of the lake up into his olfactory systems. Connor decided that he liked it. "No, but I'm thinking maybe I should plan to."

"That would be nice," he replied and genuinely meant it. Not everyday would be as misty, hiding them from prying eyes. But maybe it would be worth it, to have this time where Markus could be unburdened. 

"One condition, though," Markus pulled back, face suddenly utterly serious, brows slightly knitted. Immediately, Connor tensed, searching his expression.

"What?"

Markus took his face in his hands, peered deeply into his eyes and said, quietly, "Stop licking dead fish."

He broke down into uproarious laughter as Connor grimly latched onto his arms and started dragging him back to the freezing lake, because _now_ he wanted to hold him _underwater_ . “I. Did. Not. Lick. The. Fish. I. Was. _Checking--_ ”

This scuffle ended as Nadia barreled out of the water with a tiny avenging android army at her heels, led by the war cry, “Unhand Markus, fish licker!”

It was the one time Connor ever lost a fight on purpose. It was worth getting all of his clothes wet.

**Author's Note:**

> I was probably being paranoid tagging it with all those warnings, but better safe than upsetting someone.  
> Kids say the darndest things.
> 
> Nadia: [is at least physically 4 years old]  
> Connor: [was born 7 months ago]  
> Nadia: [points] grown-up. you know about death.  
> Connor: [sweats]


End file.
